Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has died following a short illness, her family said in a statement on Tuesday. She was 88.
"Although her passing represents a tremendous loss, we are grateful she had a long, well lived life," they said.
Born on February 18, 1931 in Ohio, Morrison witnessed different forms of racism during her early life. Later, she went on to earn a Master of Arts degree from the Cornell University.
After teaching for a few years, she turned to editing and did substantial work in bringing black literature to the foreground. The Black Book (1974) gets a particular mention among her works. It’s a chronicle of the different phases of a black person’s life from before the beginning of slavery to the 1970s.
One big moment in her literary career came when her book Beloved was selected for the Nobel Prize for literature for the year 1987. It was based on a black person’s struggles during the American civil war. Later, a film with the same name was also made which featured Oprah Winfrey and David Glover. It released in 1998.
(With inputs from AFP)
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